North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about 16.5% of the earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa,[5] and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe.[6] In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population, if nearby islands (most notably the Caribbean) are included.

European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south, because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French and societies and states commonly reflect Western traditions.

Name

Map of North America, from 1621

The Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann.[7] Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans; in 1507, Waldseemüller produced a world map, in which he placed the word "America" on the continent of South America, in the middle of what is today Brazil. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio:[8]

... ab Americo inventore ... quasi Americi terram sive Americam (from Americus the discoverer ... as if it were the land of Americus, thus America).

For Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer, he used the Latinized version of Vespucci's name (Americus Vespucius), but in its feminine form "America", following the examples of "Europa", "Asia" and "Africa".

Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the northern continent, In 1538, Gerard Mercator used America on his map of the world for all the Western Hemisphere.[9]

Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty and so a derivation from "Amerigo Vespucci" could be problematic.[10] Ricardo Palma (1949) proposed a derivation from the "Amerrique" mountains of Central America—Vespucci was the first to discover South America and the Amerrique mountains of Central America, which connected his discoveries to those of Christopher Columbus.

Alfred E. Hudd proposed a theory in 1908 that the continents are named after a Welsh merchant named Richard Amerike from Bristol, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497. A minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of 'Amairick'. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language.[9]

Extent

The term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context; in Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States and Canada together.[11] Alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland[12][13][14] and Mexico (as in the North American Free Trade Agreement),[13][15][16][17][18] as well as offshore islands. The UN geoscheme for "North America" separates Mexico from the United States and Canada, placing it instead within its designated "Central America" region, while also treating the islands of the Caribbean separately from the US/Canada definition—the UN's "North America" definition still includes the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland together with the US/Canada continental definition, with both insular entities being tectonically on the North American plate.

Regions

Geographically the North American continent has many regions and subregions, these include cultural, economic, and geographic regions. Economic regions included those formed by trade blocs, such as the North American Trade Agreement bloc and Central American Trade Agreement. Linguistically and culturally, the continent could be divided into Anglo-America and Latin America. Anglo-America includes most of Northern America, Belize, and Caribbean islands with English-speaking populations (though sub-national entities, such as Louisiana and Quebec, have large Francophone populations; in Quebec, French is an official language along with English).

The southern North American continent is composed of two regions, these are Central America and the Caribbean.[25][26] The north of the continent maintains recognized regions as well; in contrast to the common definition of "North America", which encompasses the whole continent, the term "North America" is sometimes used to refer only to Mexico, Canada, the United States, and Greenland.[12][13][14][15][27]

The term Northern America refers to the northern-most countries and territories of North America: the United States, Bermuda, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Canada and Greenland,[28][29] although the term does not refer to a unified region,[30]Middle America—not to be confused with the Midwestern United States—groups the regions of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.[31]

History

Geologic history

Principal hydrological divides of Canada, the United States and Mexico

Laurentia is an ancient craton which forms the geologic core of North America; it formed between 1.5 and 1.0 billion years ago during the Proterozoic eon.[37] The Canadian Shield is the largest exposure of this craton, from the Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic eras, North America was joined with the other modern-day continents as part of the supercontinent Pangaea, with Eurasia to its east. One of the results of the formation of Pangaea was the Appalachian Mountains, which formed some 480 million years ago, making it among the oldest mountain ranges in the world. When Pangaea began to rift around 200 million years ago, North America became part of Laurasia, before it separated from Eurasia as its own continent during the mid-Cretaceous period,[38] the Rockies and other western mountain ranges began forming around this time from a period of mountain building called the Laramide orogeny, between 80 and 55 million years ago. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama that connected the continent to South America arguably occurred approximately 12 to 15 million years ago,[39] and the Great Lakes (as well as many other northern freshwater lakes and rivers) were carved by receding glaciers about 10,000 years ago.

North America is the source of much of what humanity knows about geologic time periods,[40] the geographic area that would later become the United States has been the source of more varieties of dinosaurs than any other modern country.[40] According to paleontologist Peter Dodson, this is primarily due to stratigraphy, climate and geography, human resources, and history.[40] Much of the Mesozoic Era is represented by exposed outcrops in the many arid regions of the continent,[40] the most significant Late Jurassic dinosaur-bearing fossil deposit in North America is the Morrison Formation of the western United States.[41]

The earliest verifiable instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact by any European culture with the landmasses that geologically constitute the "mainland" of modern North America has been dated to the end of the 10th century CE – this site, situated at the northernmost extent of the island named Newfoundland, is known as L'Anse aux Meadows, where unmistakable evidence of Norse settlement was uncovered in the early 1960s.[48]

During the Age of Discovery, Europeans explored and staked claims to various parts of North America. Upon their arrival in the "New World", the Native American population declined substantially, because of violent conflicts with the invaders and the introduction of European diseases to which the Native Americans lacked immunity.[51] Native culture changed drastically and their affiliation with political and cultural groups also changed. Several linguistic groups died out, and others changed quite quickly, the names and cultures that Europeans recorded were not necessarily the same as the names they had used a few generations before, or the ones in use today.

Britain, Spain, and France took over extensive territories in North America – and fought over them; in the late 18th century and beginning of the 19th, independence movements that sprung up across the continent, led to the creation of the modern countries in the area. The 13 British colonies on the North Atlantic coast declared independence in 1776, becoming the United States of America. Canada was formed from the unification of northern territories controlled by Britain and France. New Spain, a territory that stretched from modern-day southern US to Central America, declared independence in 1810, becoming the First Mexican Empire; in 1823 the former Captaincy General of Guatemala, then part of the Mexican Empire, became the first independent state in Central America, officially changing its name to the United Provinces of Central America.

Before the Central American isthmus formed, the region had been underwater, the islands of the West Indies delineate a submerged former land bridge, which had connected North and South America via what are now Florida and Venezuela.

The continent can be divided into four great regions (each of which contains many subregions): the Great Plains stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic; the geologically young, mountainous west, including the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, California and Alaska; the raised but relatively flat plateau of the Canadian Shield in the northeast; and the varied eastern region, which includes the Appalachian Mountains, the coastal plain along the Atlantic seaboard, and the Florida peninsula. Mexico, with its long plateaus and cordilleras, falls largely in the western region, although the eastern coastal plain does extend south along the Gulf.

The western mountains are split in the middle into the main range of the Rockies and the coast ranges in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, with the Great Basin—a lower area containing smaller ranges and low-lying deserts—in between. The highest peak is Denali in Alaska.

Geology

Canadian geology

Geologically, Canada is one of the oldest regions in the world, with more than half of the region consisting of precambrian rocks that have been above sea level since the beginning of the Palaeozoic era.[61] Canada's mineral resources are diverse and extensive.[61] Across the Canadian Shield and in the north there are large iron, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, and uranium reserves. Large diamond concentrations have been recently developed in the Arctic,[62] making Canada one of the world's largest producers. Throughout the Shield there are many mining towns extracting these minerals, the largest, and best known, is Sudbury, Ontario. Sudbury is an exception to the normal process of forming minerals in the Shield since there is significant evidence that the Sudbury Basin is an ancient meteoriteimpact crater. The nearby, but less known Temagami Magnetic Anomaly has striking similarities to the Sudbury Basin, its magnetic anomalies are very similar to the Sudbury Basin, and so it could be a second metal-rich impact crater.[63] The Shield is also covered by vast boreal forests that support an important logging industry.

Central American geology

Central America is geologically active with volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occurring from time to time; in 1976 Guatemala was hit by a major earthquake, killing 23,000 people; Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, was devastated by earthquakes in 1931 and 1972, the last one killing about 5,000 people; three earthquakes devastated El Salvador, one in 1986 and two in 2001; one earthquake devastated northern and central Costa Rica in 2009, killing at least 34 people; in Honduras a powerful earthquake killed seven people in 2009.

Volcanic eruptions are common in the region; in 1968 the Arenal Volcano, in Costa Rica, erupted and killed 87 people. Fertile soils from weathered volcanic lavas have made it possible to sustain dense populations in the agriculturally productive highland areas.

Climate

North America map of Köppen climate classification

North America is a very large continent which surpasses the Arctic Circle, and the Tropic of Cancer. Greenland, along with the Canadian Shield, is tundra with average temperatures ranging from 10 to 20 °C (50 to 68 °F), but central Greenland is composed of a very large ice sheet. This tundra radiates throughout Canada, but its border ends near the Rocky Mountains (but still contains Alaska) and at the end of the Canadian Shield, near the Great Lakes. Climate west of the Cascades is described as being a temperate weather with average precipitation 20 inches (510 mm).[64] Climate in coastal California is described to be Mediterranean, with average temperatures in cities like San Francisco ranging from 57 to 70 °F (14 to 21 °C) over the course of the year.[65]

Stretching from the East Coast to eastern North Dakota, and stretching down to Kansas, is the continental-humid climate featuring intense seasons, with a large amount of annual precipitation, with places like New York City averaging 50 inches (1,300 mm).[66] Starting at the southern border of the continental-humid climate and stretching to the Gulf of Mexico (whilst encompassing the eastern half of Texas) is the subtropical climate, this area has the wettest cities in the contiguous U.S. with annual precipitation reaching 67 inches (1,700 mm) in Mobile, Alabama.[67] Stretching from the borders of the continental humid and subtropical climates, and going west to the Cascades Sierra Nevada, south to the southern tip of durango, north to the border with tundra climate, the steppe/desert climate is the driest climate in the U.S.[68]

Ecology

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Economically, Canada and the United States are the wealthiest and most developed nations in the continent, followed by Mexico, a newly industrialized country,[69] the countries of Central America and the Caribbean are at various levels of economic and human development. For example, small Caribbean island-nations, such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda, have a higher GDP (PPP) per capita than Mexico due to their smaller populations. Panama and Costa Rica have a significantly higher Human Development Index and GDP than the rest of the Central American nations.[70] Additionally, despite Greenland's vast resources in oil and minerals, much of them remain untapped, and the island is economically dependent on fishing, tourism, and subsidies from Denmark. Nevertheless, the island is highly developed.[71]

Languages

The dominant languages in North America are English, Spanish, and French. Danish is prevalent in Greenland alongside Greenlandic, and Dutch is spoken side by side local languages in the Dutch Caribbean, the term Anglo-America is used to refer to the anglophone countries of the Americas: namely Canada (where English and French are co-official) and the United States, but also sometimes Belize and parts of the tropics, especially the Commonwealth Caribbean. Latin America refers to the other areas of the Americas (generally south of the United States) where the Romance languages, derived from Latin, of Spanish and Portuguese (but French speaking countries are not usually included) predominate: the other republics of Central America (but not always Belize), part of the Caribbean (not the Dutch-, English-, or French-speaking areas), Mexico, and most of South America (except Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana (France), and the Falkland Islands (UK)).

The French language has historically played a significant role in North America and now retains a distinctive presence in some regions. Canada is officially bilingual. French is the official language of the Province of Quebec, where 95% of the people speak it as either their first or second language, and it is co-official with English in the Province of New Brunswick. Other French-speaking locales include the Province of Ontario (the official language is English, but there are an estimated 600,000 Franco-Ontarians), the Province of Manitoba (co-official as de jure with English), the French West Indies and Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, as well as the US state of Louisiana, where French is also an official language. Haiti is included with this group based on historical association but Haitians speak both Creole and French. Similarly, French and French Antillean Creole is spoken in Saint Lucia and the Commonwealth of Dominica alongside English.

Religions

Christianity is the largest religion in the United States, Canada and Mexico. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, 77% of the population considered themselves Christians.[72] Christianity also is the predominant religion in the 23 dependent territories in North America.[73] The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 247 million Christians (70%), although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations.[74] Mexico has the world's second largest number of Catholics, surpassed only by Brazil.[75] A 2015 study estimates about 493,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background in North America, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.[76]

According to the same study religiously unaffiliated (include agnostic and atheist) make up about 17% of the population of Canada and the United States.[77] No religion make up about 24% of the United States population, and 24% of Canada total population.[78]

Canada, the United States and Mexico host communities of both Jews (6 million or about 1.8%),[79]Buddhists (3.8 million or 1.1%)[80] and Muslims (3.4 million or 1.0%).[81] The biggest number of Jewish individuals can be found in the United States (5.4 million),[82] Canada (375,000)[83] and Mexico (67,476),[84] the United States host the largest Muslim population in North America with 2.7 million or 0.9%,[85][86] While Canada host about one million Muslim or 3.2% of the population.[87] While in Mexico there were 3,700 Muslims in the country;[88] in 2012, U-T San Diego estimated U.S. practitioners of Buddhism at 1.2 million people, of whom 40% are living in Southern California.[89]

The predominant religion in Central America is Christianity (96%).[90] Beginning with the Spanish colonization of Central America in the 16th century, Roman Catholicism became the most popular religion in the region until the first half of the 20th century, since the 1960s, there has been an increase in other Christian groups, particularly Protestantism, as well as other religious organizations, and individuals identifying themselves as having no religion. Also Christianity is the predominant religion in the Caribbean (85%).[90] Other religious groups in the region are Hinduism, Islam, Rastafari (in Jamaica), and Afro-American religions such as Santería and Vodou.

The most populous country in North America is the United States with 318.4 million persons.[91] The second largest country is Mexico with a population of 112,322,757.[92] Canada is the third most populous country with 32,623,490,[93] the majority of Caribbean island-nations have national populations under a million, though Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico (a territory of the United States), Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago each have populations higher than a million.[94][95][96][97][98] Greenland has a small population of 55,984 for its massive size (2,166,000 km² or 836,300 mi²), and therefore, it has the world's lowest population density at 0.026 pop./km² (0.067 pop./mi²).[99]

While the United States, Canada, and Mexico maintain the largest populations, large city populations are not restricted to those nations. There are also large cities in the Caribbean, the largest cities in North America, by far, are Mexico City and New York. These cities are the only cities on the continent to exceed eight million, and two of three in the Americas. Next in size are Los Angeles, Toronto,[100] Chicago, Havana, Santo Domingo, and Montreal. Cities in the sunbelt regions of the United States, such as those in Southern California and Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Atlanta, and Las Vegas, are experiencing rapid growth. These causes included warm temperatures, retirement of Baby Boomers, large industry, and the influx of immigrants. Cities near the United States border, particularly in Mexico, are also experiencing large amounts of growth. Most notable is Tijuana, a city bordering San Diego that receives immigrants from all over Latin America and parts of Europe and Asia. Yet as cities grow in these warmer regions of North America, they are increasingly forced to deal with the major issue of water shortages.[101]

Canada, Mexico, and the United States have significant and multifaceted economic systems, the United States has the largest economy of all three countries and in the world.[109] In 2016, the U.S. had an estimated per capita gross domestic product (PPP) of $57,466 according to the World Bank, and is the most technologically developed economy of the three.[110] The United States' services sector comprises 77% of the country's GDP (estimated in 2010), industry comprises 22% and agriculture comprises 1.2%.[109] The U.S. economy is also the fastest growing economy in North America and the Americas as a whole,[111][1] with the highest GDP per capita in the Americas as well.[1]

Canada shows significant growth in the sectors of services, mining and manufacturing.[112] Canada's per capita GDP (PPP) was estimated at $44,656 and it had the 11th largest GDP (nominal) in 2014.[112] Canada's services sector comprises 78% of the country's GDP (estimated in 2010), industry comprises 20% and agriculture comprises 2%.[112] Mexico has a per capita GDP (PPP) of $16,111 and as of 2014 is the 15th largest GDP (nominal) in the world.[113] Being a newly industrialized country,[69] Mexico maintains both modern and outdated industrial and agricultural facilities and operations,[114] its main sources of income are oil, industrial exports, manufactured goods, electronics, heavy industry, automobiles, construction, food, banking and financial services.[115]

The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) forms one of the four largest trade blocs in the world,[117] its implementation in 1994 was designed for economic homogenization with hopes of eliminating barriers of trade and foreign investment between Canada, the United States and Mexico.[118] While Canada and the United States already conducted the largest bilateral trade relationship – and to present day still do – in the world and Canada–United States trade relations already allowed trade without national taxes and tariffs,[119] NAFTA allowed Mexico to experience a similar duty-free trade, the free trade agreement allowed for the elimination of tariffs that had previously been in place on United States-Mexico trade. Trade volume has steadily increased annually and in 2010, surface trade between the three NAFTA nations reached an all-time historical increase of 24.3% or US$791 billion.[120] The NAFTA trade bloc GDP (PPP) is the world's largest with US$17.617 trillion.[121] This is in part attributed to the fact that the economy of the United States is the world's largest national economy; the country had a nominal GDP of approximately $14.7 trillion in 2010.[122] The countries of NAFTA are also some of each other's largest trade partners, the United States is the largest trade partner of Canada and Mexico;[123] while Canada and Mexico are each other's third largest trade partners.[124][125]

The Caribbean trade bloc – CARICOM – came into agreement in 1973 when it was signed by 15 Caribbean nations, as of 2000, CARICOM trade volume was US$96 billion. CARICOM also allowed for the creation of a common passport for associated nations; in the past decade the trade bloc focused largely on Free Trade Agreements and under the CARICOM Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) free trade agreements have been signed into effect.

Integration of Central American economies occurred under the signing of the Central American Common Market agreement in 1961; this was the first attempt to engage the nations of this area into stronger financial cooperation. Recent implementation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has left the future of the CACM unclear.[126] The Central American Free Trade Agreement was signed by five Central American countries, the Dominican Republic, and the United States, the focal point of CAFTA is to create a free trade area similar to that of NAFTA. In addition to the United States, Canada also has relations in Central American trade blocs. Currently under proposal, the Canada – Central American Free Trade Agreement (CA4) would operate much the same as CAFTA with the United States does.

Transport

The Pan-American Highway route in the Americas is the portion of a network of roads nearly 48,000 km (30,000 mi) in length which travels through the mainland nations. No definitive length of the Pan-American Highway exists because the US and Canadian governments have never officially defined any specific routes as being part of the Pan-American Highway, and Mexico officially has many branches connecting to the US border. However, the total length of the portion from Mexico to the northern extremity of the highway is roughly 26,000 km (16,000 mi).

The First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States was built in the 1860s, linking the railroad network of the eastern US with California on the Pacific coast. Finished on 10 May 1869 at the famous golden spike event at Promontory Summit, Utah, it created a nationwide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West, catalyzing the transition from the wagon trains of previous decades to a modern transportation system.[127] Although an accomplishment, it achieved the status of first transcontinental railroad by connecting myriad eastern US railroads to the Pacific and was not the largest single railroad system in the world, the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) had, by 1867, already accumulated more than 2,055 km (1,277 mi) of track by connecting Ontario with the Canadian Atlantic provinces west as far as Port Huron, Michigan, through Sarnia, Ontario.

Culture

Canada and the United States were both former British colonies. There is frequent cultural interplay between the United States and English-speaking Canada. Greenland shares some cultural ties with the indigenous people of Canada but is considered Nordic and has strong Danish ties due to centuries of colonization by Denmark. Spanish-speaking North America shares a common past as former Spanish colonies; in Mexico and the Central American countries where civilizations like the Maya developed, indigenous people preserve traditions across modern boundaries. Central American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations have historically had more in common due to geographical proximity.

^Because of ongoing activity of the Soufriere Hills volcano beginning in July 1995, much of Plymouth was destroyed and government offices were relocated to Brades. Plymouth remains the de jure capital.

^Panama is generally considered a North American country, though some authorities divide it at the Panama Canal. Figures listed here are for the entire country.

^"Map And Details Of All 7 Continents". worldatlas.com. Retrieved September 2, 2016. In some parts of the world students are taught that there are only six continents, as they combine North America and South America into one continent called the Americas.

^Lloyd, John; Mitchinson, John (2006). The Book of General Ignorance. Harmony Books. p. 95. ISBN978-0-307-39491-0. New countries or continents were never named after a person's first name, but always after the second ...

^Burchfield, R. W., ed. (2004). ""America"". Fowler's Modern English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN0-19-861021-1. the term 'North America' is mostly used to mean the United States and Canada together. Countries to the south of the United States are described as being in Central America (Mexico, Nicaragua, etc.) or South America (Brazil, Argentina, etc.). See also: McArthur, Tom (1992). "North American". The Oxford Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 707. ISBN0-19-214183-X.

^"Norteamérica" [North America] (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 30 January 2009. In Ibero-America, North America is considered a subcontinent containing Canada, the United States, Mexico, Greenland, Bermuda and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

^"Six or Seven Continents on Earth". Retrieved 18 December 2016. "In Europe and other parts of the world, many students are taught of six continents, where North and South America are combined to form a single continent of America. Thus, these six continents are Africa, America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, and Europe."

^"Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2009" (in Spanish) (2010 ed.). Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, República de Cuba. Archived from the original on 16 July 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2010. Note: An exchange rate of 1 CUC to US$1.08 was used to convert GDP. [1]

1.
Northern America
–
Northern America is the northernmost subcontinent of North America. It lies directly north of the region of Middle America, consisting of Mexico, the Caribbean, the land border between the two regions coincides with the border between the United States and Mexico. Geopolitically, according to the scheme of geographic regions and subregions, Northern America consists of Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, maps using the term Northern America date back to 1755, when the region was occupied by France, Great Britain, and Spain. The Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America in 1813 applied to Mexico, Central America Middle America Americas Anglo-America

2.
Demonym
–
A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above

3.
New York metropolitan area
–
The New York metropolitan area continues to be the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States, with the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The MSA covers 6,720 sq mi, while the CSA area is 13,318 sq mi, encompassing an ethnically and geographically diverse region. In 2012, the New York metropolitan area was home to seven of the 25 wealthiest counties in the United States by median household income. According to Forbes, in 2014, the New York City metropolitan area was home to eight of the top ten ZIP codes in the United States by median housing price, with six in Manhattan alone. The U. S. Office of Management and Budget utilizes two definitions of the area, the Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Combined Statistical Area, the MSA is further subdivided into four metropolitan divisions. The 25-county metropolitan area includes 12 counties in New York State,12 counties in Northern and Central New Jersey, the largest urbanized area in the United States is at the heart of the metropolitan area, the New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT Urbanized Area. The New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area had an population of 23.7 million as of 2014. About one out of every fifteen Americans resides in this region, which includes seven counties in New York, New Jersey. This area, less the Pennsylvania portion, is referred to as the Tri-State Area. The New York City television designated market area includes Pike County, Pennsylvania, for instance, Long Island can be divided into its South and North Shores and the East End. The Hudson Valley and Connecticut are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the Northern Suburbs, the geographical, cultural, and economic center of the metropolitan area is New York City, which consists of five boroughs, each of which is also a county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, with a Census-estimated population of 8,550,405 in 2015, distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Long Island is a located just off the northeast coast of the United States. Stretching east-northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean, the island comprises four counties, Kings and Queens to the west, then Nassau, North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which are the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Its population density is 5,571 inhabitants per square mile, Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Long Island is the most populated island in the United States, known especially for recreation, boating and miles of public beaches, including numerous town, county and state parks and Fire Island National Seashore. The East End of Long Island boasts open spaces for farmland, passenger rail access is provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Long Island Rail Road, one of the largest commuter railroads in the United States. Air travel needs are served by several airports – most notably Farmingdale-Republic Airport and Islip-MacArthur Airport, within Queens, it is home to John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, two of the three major airline hubs serving the New York City area

4.
Greater Mexico City
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For normative purposes, however, Greater Mexico City most commonly refers to the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico an agglomeration that incorporates 18 additional municipalities. As of 2010 Census, Greater Mexico City had a population just over 20 million, but as of a 2014 census, its estimated the population of Greater Mexico City was 25.4 million people, making it the largest urban agglomeration in the western hemisphere. Since the 1940s there have been different proposals to establish the limits of the conurbation of Mexico City. Per the agreement, most urban planning projects will be administered by Metropolitan Commissions. Because of a clause in the Mexican Constitution, however, as the seat of the powers of the federation, it can never become a state, the English name Mexico City remains. Its original 16 Boroughs became municipalities, the Mexico City Metropolitan Area fully covers 5 regions in Mexico State, partly covers another 5 regions, the Federal District, and 1 municipality in Hidalgo. Many urban projects, mostly related to the improvement of air quality, the majority of the population reports of urban areas in Mexico refer to this agglomeration, and not to the MCMA conurbation. The following intrastate regions have some municipalities lying within the Mexico City metropolitan area Note that all municipalities are within the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico. Together these 10 intrastate regions cover every single municipality within the Valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area except for the 1 municipality in Hidalgo State, originally, a system of interconnected lakes occupied a large area of the valley, of which Lake Texcoco was the largest. Mexico City was built on the island of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the lake, in 1900 president Porfirio Díaz inaugurated the Valleys System of Drainage that hinders the growth of water bodies in the valley. The basin of the valley of Mexico was thus integrated artificially to the Moctezuma river basin which connects to the Pánuco River, the last remnants of the system of lakes are found in the boroughs of Xochimilco and Tláhuac, and in the municipality of Atenco. The valley of Mexico is surrounded by mountains on all four sides creating a basin with only one opening at the north. At the southern part of the basin the mountain reaches an altitude of 3,952 m above sea level. There are several programs in operation in all municipalities of Greater Mexico City. The program groups vehicles by their license plate digits. For instance, on Fridays, vehicles with plates ending in 9 or 0 may not drive and this program is controversial since it has resulted in households buying additional vehicles, either new cars for better-off houses, or very old cheap—and thus more polluting—vehicles. Other environmental programs include the IMECA a real-time monitoring of the concentrations of pollutants on the atmosphere of the valley of Mexico. There has been a decrease in the number of environmental contingencies since the 1990s, like it is the case with all trans-municipal metropolitan areas in Mexico, there is no elected government institution in charge of administering the entire metropolitan area

5.
Greater Los Angeles Area
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Throughout the 20th century, it was one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States, although growth has slowed since 2000. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of nearly 13 million residents. Meanwhile, the metropolitan regions population at the 2010 census was estimated to be over 17.8 million residents. Either definition makes it the second largest metropolitan region in the country, behind the New York metropolitan area, the agglomeration of the urbanized Greater Los Angeles area surrounds the urban core of Los Angeles County. However, this Census definition includes large, sparsely populated and primarily desert swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, according to the U. S. However, more than half of this area lies in the sparsely populated eastern areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Los Angeles has a reputation for sprawl. For comparison, the New York–Newark Urbanized Area as a whole had a density of 5,309 per square mile. Los Angeles sprawl may originate in the decentralized structure. Its major commercial, financial, and cultural institutions are geographically dispersed rather than being concentrated in a single downtown or central area. Also, the density of Los Angeles proper is low when compared to some other large American cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston. This is misleading though, since unlike other cities the boundary of Los Angeles incorporates mountain areas with almost no people, when the actually built up area is considered, urban Los Angeles has density in excess of 10,000 people per square mile. Densities are particularly high within a 5-mile radius of downtown, where some neighborhoods exceed 20,000 people per square mile. Also, what gives the entire Los Angeles metro region a high density is the fact many of the citys suburbs. Within its urbanized areas, Los Angeles is noted for having small lot sizes, buildings in the area are low when compared to other large cities, mainly due to zoning regulations. Los Angeles became a city just as the Pacific Electric Railway spread population to smaller cities much as interurbans did in East Coast cities. In the first decades of the century, the area was marked by a network of fairly dense. The ascendance of the automobile helped fill in the gaps between these towns with lower-density settlements. Many working class whites migrated to this area during the 1960s and 1970s out of East, as a result, there was a large growth in population into the Conejo Valley and into Ventura County through the US101 corridor

6.
Chicago metropolitan area
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The Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Chicago, Illinois, and its suburbs. With an estimated population of 9.4 million people, it is the third largest metropolitan area in the United States, Chicagoland is the area that is closely linked to the city through geographic, social, economic, and cultural ties. The Chicago metropolitan area is one of the world’s largest and most diversified economies, with more than four million employees, the region is home to more than 400 major corporate headquarters, including 31 in the Fortune 500. The Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area was originally designated by the United States Census Bureau in 1950 and it comprised the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, along with Lake County in Indiana. As surrounding counties saw an increase in their population densities and the number of their residents employed within Cook County, the Chicago MSA, now defined as the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the third largest MSA by population in the United States. The 2015 census estimate for the MSA was 9,427,676 and this loss of population has been attributed to taxes, political issues, and other factors. A breakdown of the 2009 estimated populations of the three Metropolitan Divisions of the MSA are as follows, The OMB also defines a larger region as a Combined Statistical Area. The Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area combines the areas of Chicago, Michigan City. This area represents the extent of the market pool for the entire region. The CSA has a population of 9,928,312, the Chicago urban agglomeration, according to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report, lists a population of 9,545,000. The term “urban agglomeration” refers to the contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels. It usually incorporates the population in a city plus that in the surrounding area, Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area. The term Chicagoland has no definition, and the region is often considered to include areas beyond the corresponding MSA. Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, mcCormicks conception of Chicagoland stretched all the way to nearby parts of four states. The first usage was in the Tribunes July 27,1926 front page headline, Chicagolands Shrines, A Tour of Discoveries and he stated that Chicagoland comprised everything in a 200-mile radius in every direction and reported on many different places in the area. The Tribune was the dominant newspaper in a vast area stretching to the west of the city, today, the Chicago Tribunes usage includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties, and the two Indiana counties of Lake and Porter. Illinois Department of Tourism literature uses Chicagoland for suburbs in Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties. For example, many residents who live in some of the more distant satellite counties nonetheless refer to themselves as being from Chicago or Chicagoans

7.
Greater Boston
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The region forms the northern arc of the US northeast megalopolis and as such, Greater Boston can be described as either a metropolitan statistical area, or as a broader combined statistical area. Some of Greater Bostons most well-known contributions to human civilization involve the higher education institutions. Greater Boston has been influential upon American history and industry, the region and the state of Massachusetts are global leaders in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade. Over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan region, the area has hosted many people and sites significant to American culture and history, particularly American literature, politics, and the American Revolution. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution, the Greater Boston region has played a powerful commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, the region was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in 2004, Massachusetts became the first US state to legally recognize same-sex marriage as a result of the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Boston. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the Boston region, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. The most restrictive definition of the Greater Boston area is the region administered by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the MAPC is a regional planning organization created by the Massachusetts legislature to oversee transportation infrastructure and economic development concerns in the Boston area. The MAPC includes 101 cities and towns that are grouped into eight subregions and these include most of the area within the regions outer circumferential highway, I-495. The eight subregions and their towns are, Inner Core, Minuteman, MetroWest, North Shore, North Suburban, South Shore, SouthWest. Northern Bristol County is part of the Greater Boston CSA, as part of the Providence MSA, the urbanized area surrounding Boston serves as the core of a definition used by the US Census Bureau known as the New England city and town area. The set of towns containing the core urbanized area plus surrounding towns with strong social and economic ties to the area is defined as the Boston–Cambridge–Nashua. The Boston NECTA is further subdivided into several NECTA divisions, which are listed below, the Boston, Framingham, and Peabody NECTA divisions together correspond roughly to the MAPC area. The total population of the Boston NECTA was 4,540,941, the metropolitan statistical area had a total population of approximately 4,732,161 as of 2014 and is the tenth-largest in the United States. The components of the area with their estimated 2012 populations are listed below. This area consists of the areas of Manchester, Worcester, Providence, as well as Cape Cod. The total population as of 2014 for the region was estimated at 8,099,575

8.
Greater Toronto Area
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The Greater Toronto Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Canada. As of the 2016 census, it has a population of 6,417,516, the Greater Toronto Area is defined as the central city of Toronto, and the four regional municipalities that surround it, Durham, Halton, Peel, and York. The regional span of the Greater Toronto Area is sometimes combined with the city of Hamilton, Ontario and its region, to form the Greater Toronto. The Greater Toronto Area anchors a much larger urban agglomeration known as the Golden Horseshoe. However, it did not come into everyday usage until the mid- to late 1990s, the latter includes communities like Barrie, Guelph and the Niagara Region. The GTA continues, however, to be in use elsewhere in the Government of Ontario. For example, Oshawa, which is the centre of its own CMA, other municipalities, such as New Tecumseth in southern Simcoe County and Mono Township in Dufferin County are included in the Toronto CMA but not in the GTA. Other nearby urban areas, such as Hamilton, Barrie or St. Catharines-Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo, are not part of the GTA or the Toronto CMA, but form their own CMAs near the GTA. Ultimately, all the places are part of the Golden Horseshoe metropolitan region, an urban agglomeration. When the Hamilton, Oshawa and Toronto CMAs are agglomerated with Brock and Scugog and it is part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis, containing an estimated 59 million people in 2011. The term Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area refers to the usual GTA plus the former Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth, the Greater Toronto Area was home to a number of First Nations groups who lived on the shore of Lake Ontario long before the first Europeans arrived in the region. At various times the Neutral, Seneca, Mohawk and Huron nations were living in the vicinity, the Mississaugas arrived in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, driving out the occupying Iroquois. While it is unclear as to who was the first European to reach the Toronto area, the area would later become very crucial for its series of trails and water routes that led from northern and western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the Toronto Passage, it followed the Humber River, for this reason area became a hot spot for French fur traders. In 1787, the British negotiated the purchase of more than a million acres of land in the area of Toronto with the Mississaugas of New Credit. The Town of York would later be attacked by American forces in the War of 1812 in what is now known as the Battle of York, in 1816, Wentworth County and Halton County were created from York County. In 1851, Ontario County and Peel County were separated from York, the idea for a single government municipality would not be seriously explored until the late 1940s when planners decided the city needed to incorporate its immediate suburbs. However, due to opposition from suburban politicians, a compromise was struck which resulted in the creation of Metropolitan Toronto

9.
San Francisco Bay Area
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The San Francisco Bay Area is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco. The Bay Areas nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California, the fifth-largest in the United States, the Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 Companies in the United States, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The eastern side of the bay, consisting of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is known locally as the East Bay, the inner East Bay is more densely populated, with generally older buildings, and a more ethnically diverse population. The word Lamorinda was coined by combining the names of the cities it includes, Lafayette, Moraga, walnut Creek is situated east of Lamorinda and north of the San Ramon Valley and, together with Concord, Martinez, and Pleasant Hill comprises Central Contra Costa County. The cities of Antioch, Pittsburg, Brentwood, Oakley and the areas surrounding them comprise East Contra Costa County. The Tri-Valley consists of the Amador, the Livermore, and the San Ramon Valleys, dublin and Pleasanton comprise the Amador Valley, Livermore lies in the Livermore Valley, and the San Ramon Valley consists of Alamo, Danville, Diablo and its namesake, San Ramon. The outer East Bay is connected to the inner East Bay by BART, Interstate 580 to the south, and State Routes State Route 4 to the north, the outer East Bays infrastructure was mostly built up after World War II. This area remains largely white demographically, although the Hispanic and Filipino populations have grown significantly over the past 2–3 decades, the region north of the Golden Gate Bridge is known locally as the North Bay. This area encompasses Marin County, Sonoma County, Napa County, the city of Fairfield, being part of Solano County, is often considered the easternmost city of the North Bay. With few exceptions, this region is affluent, Marin County is ranked as the wealthiest in the state. The North Bay is relatively rural compared to the remainder of the Bay Area, with areas of undeveloped open space, farmland. Santa Rosa in Sonoma County is the North Bays largest city, with a population of 167,815 and a Metropolitan Statistical Area population of 466,891, making it the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. The North Bay is the section of the Bay Area that is not currently served by a commuter rail service. The area from San Francisco to the Silicon Valley, geographically part of the San Francisco Peninsula, is known locally as The Peninsula, many of these families are of foreign background and have significantly contributed to the diversity of the area. Whereas the term peninsula technically refers to the entire geographical San Franciscan Peninsula, in local terms, San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides, the north, east, and west. The city squeezes roughly 870,000 people in under 47 square miles, on any given day, there can be as many as 1 million people in the city because of the commuting population and tourism

10.
Greater Houston
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Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land is a nine-county metropolitan area defined by the Office of Management and Budget. It is located along the Gulf Coast region in the U. S. state of Texas, the metropolitan area is colloquially referred to as Greater Houston and is situated in Southeast Texas. The population of the area is centered in the city of Houston—the largest economic. Houston is among the metropolitan areas in the United States. From 2000 to 2007, the area grew by 912,994 people, from 2000 to 2030, the metropolitan area is projected by Woods & Poole Economics to rank fifth in the nation in population growth—adding 2.66 million people. It is a part of the Texas Triangle megapolitan area, the OMB lumps the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland MSA with four micropolitan statistical areas to form the Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area. Bay City, Brenham, El Campo, and Huntsville, the metropolitan area is located in the Gulf Coastal Plains biome, and its vegetation is classified as temperate grassland. Much of the area was built on forested land, marshes, swamp. The Houston area land mass is very diverse, there is forested land and hills to the north, beaches and grasslands to the south, swamps and marshlands to the east, rice fields and praires to the west. Much of the Houston metropolitan area is flat, making flooding a recurring problem for some areas. Underpinning Houstons land surface are unconsolidated clays, clay shales, the regions geology developed from stream deposits formed from the erosion of the Rocky Mountains. These sediments consist of a series of sands and clays deposited on decaying organic matter that, over time, transformed into oil, beneath these tiers is a water-deposited layer of halite, a rock salt. The porous layers were compressed over time and forced upward, as it pushed upward, the salt dragged surrounding sediments into dome shapes, often trapping oil and gas that seeped from the surrounding porous sands. This thick, rich soil provides a good environment for rice farming in suburban outskirts into which the city continues to grow near Katy. Evidence of past rice farming is still evident in developed areas as an abundance of rich, dark. The Houston region is generally earthquake-free and these faults generally move at a smooth rate in what is termed fault creep. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget, the area of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land encompasses nine counties in Texas. They are listed below with figures as of the 2010 U. S. Census

11.
Miami metropolitan area
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The Miami metropolitan area, also known as the Greater Miami Area or South Florida, is the 67th largest metropolitan area in the world and the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. It is entirely located in the portion of the U. S. State of Florida. Its land area is 6,137 sq. mi, the three counties together have principal cities including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton. Besides its association with the South Florida region, is also synonymous with an area known collectively as the Gold Coast. This includes the four counties of Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River. The Miami metropolitan statistical area is longer than any other urbanized area in the United States except for the New York metropolitan area and it was the eighth most densely populated urbanized area in the United States in the 2000 census. As of the 2000 census, the area had a land area of 1,116 square miles, with a population of 4,919,036. Miami and Hialeah had population densities of more than 10,000 per square mile, the Miami Urbanized Area was the fourth largest urbanized area in the United States in the 2010 census. The Miami metropolitan area includes several urban clusters as of the 2000 Census which are not part of the Miami Urbanized Area. The following is a list of the twenty largest cities in the Miami metropolitan area as ranked by population, the Miami area is a very diverse community with a large proportion of foreign-born residents, in large part due to its proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean. Another large factor are residents who were former snowbirds from the Northeast and, to a lesser extent, politically speaking, the region is heavily Democratic. Broward County is the second most reliably Democratic county in the state, as of the 2005 American Community Survey,5,334,685 people lived in the metropolis. The Miami area has a very large Jewish community,10. 2% of the population was Jewish in the 2000 Census, There is also a sizable Muslim community numbering at 70,000. Population, As of the 2010 U. S. Census,2.8 million were females and 2.6 million were males. The median age was 38.6 years, 24% of the population were under 18 years and 15% were 65 years and older. There were 2,097,626 households, and 1,378,108 families residing in the Miami metropolitan area, among people at least five years old living in the region in 2005, 52% spoke English at home while 48% spoke some other language at home. Of those speaking a language other than English at home, 78% spoke Spanish, households and families, There were 2,338,450 households, The average household size was 2.6 people. Families made up 65% of the households in the Miami area and this figure includes both married-couple families and other families

12.
Delaware Valley
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The Delaware Valley is the valley through which the Delaware River flows. By extension, this toponym is commonly used to refer to the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area is located at the southern part of the Northeast megalopolis extending from Boston to Washington, D. C. metropolitan areas. The MSA has a population of over 6 million, while the CSA has a population of over 7.1 million. Philadelphia, being the major commercial, cultural, and industrial center. As of March 2011, the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD Metropolitan Statistical Area constitutes the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, Philadelphias media market ranks fourth, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, in Nielsen Media Market size rankings. It also borders the New York metropolitan area located directly to the north of this area, such educational institutions as Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township and Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township are named after the region. Likewise, Frenchtowns now defunct newspaper The Delaware Valley News was another example of the usage, although much of the Trenton MSA is considered part of the Delaware Valley and often considered part of Philadelphias media market area, it is classified as part of New Yorks CSA. Within the Hispanic population, the vast majority are Puerto Ricans, there is a significant West Indian community. There is even a small Native American community known as Lenapehoking for Lenni-Lenape Indians of West Philadelphia. Philadelphias suburbs contain a concentration of malls, the two largest of which have at least 5,000,000 square feet of office space. Malls, office complexes, strip shopping plazas, expressways, and tract housing are common sights, and more and more continue to replace rolling countryside, farms, woods, and wetlands. However, due to opposition by residents and political officials. Older townships and large boroughs such as Cheltenham, Norristown, Jenkintown, Upper Darby, the fastest-growing counties are Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Gloucester. Upper Darby, in Delaware County is the largest township in the United States, sometimes Reading is included in the Delaware Valley Metro Area. The Delaware Valley has four seasons with ample precipitation and is divided by the 0 °C January isotherm. The region has two ski areas, Bear Creek Ski and Recreation Area in eastern Berks County and Spring Mountain in central Montgomery County. Using the -3 °C January isotherm as a boundary, all of the Delaware Valley is humid subtropical except for portions of Berks County, the warm-summer humid continental climate only exists in higher areas of Berks where all monthly temperatures average below 22 °C. The valley was the territory of the Susquehannock and Lenape, who are recalled in place throughout the region

13.
Continent
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A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, in geology, areas of continental crust include regions covered with water. Islands are frequently grouped with a continent to divide all the worlds land into geopolitical regions. Under this scheme, most of the countries and territories in the Pacific Ocean are grouped together with the continent of Australia to form a geopolitical region called Oceania. By convention, continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, many of the seven most commonly recognized continents identified by convention are not discrete landmasses separated completely by water. Earths major landmasses all have coasts on a single, continuous World Ocean, the most restricted meaning of continent is that of a continuous area of land or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. From this perspective the edge of the shelf is the true edge of the continent. In this sense the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are part of Europe, while Australia, as a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa, extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers group the Australasian continental plate with other islands in the Pacific into one continent called Oceania. This divides the land surface of Earth into continents or quasi-continents. The ideal criterion that each continent be a discrete landmass is commonly relaxed due to historical conventions, of the seven most globally recognized continents, only Antarctica and Australia are completely separated from other continents by ocean. Several continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies but as more or less discrete masses of land, Asia and Africa are joined by the Isthmus of Suez, and North and South America by the Isthmus of Panama. In both cases, there is no separation of these landmasses by water. Both these isthmuses are very narrow compared to the bulk off the landmasses they unite, North America and South America are treated as separate continents in the seven-continent model. However, they may also be viewed as a continent known as America or the Americas. This viewpoint was common in the United States until World War II and this remains the more common vision in Latin American countries, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece, where they are taught as a single continent. The criterion of a landmass is completely disregarded if the continuous landmass of Eurasia is classified as two separate continents, Europe and Asia

14.
Northern Hemisphere
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The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earths North pole. Due to the Earths axial tilt, winter in the Northern Hemisphere lasts from the December solstice to the March Equinox, the dates vary each year due to the difference between the calendar year and the astronomical year. Its surface is 60. 7% water, compared with 80. 9% water in the case of the Southern Hemisphere, the Arctic is the region north of the Arctic Circle. Its climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers, precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow. The Arctic experiences some days in summer when the Sun never sets, the duration of these phases varies from one day for locations right on the Arctic Circle to several months near the North Pole, which is the middle of the Northern Hemisphere. Between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer lies the Northern Temperate Zone, the changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally mild, rather than extreme hot or cold. However, a temperate climate can have very unpredictable weather, tropical regions are generally hot all year round and tend to experience a rainy season during the summer months, and a dry season during the winter months. In the Northern Hemisphere, objects moving across or above the surface of the Earth tend to turn to the right because of the coriolis effect, as a result, large-scale horizontal flows of air or water tend to form clockwise-turning gyres. These are best seen in circulation patterns in the North Atlantic. For the same reason, flows of air down toward the surface of the Earth tend to spread across the surface in a clockwise pattern. Thus, clockwise air circulation is characteristic of high pressure weather cells in the Northern Hemisphere, conversely, air rising from the northern surface of the Earth tends to draw air toward it in a counterclockwise pattern. Hurricanes and tropical storms spin counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, the shadow of a sundial moves clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. When viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, the Moon appears inverted compared to a view from the Southern Hemisphere, the North Pole faces away from the galactic center of the Milky Way. The Northern Hemisphere is home to approximately 6.57 billion people which is around 90% of the total human population of 7.3 billion people

15.
Americas
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The Americas, also collectively called America, encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America. Together they make up most of the land in Earths western hemisphere, along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earths total surface area and 28. 4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago, a second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson, however, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers, diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including numbers of indentured servants. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776, the population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous countries. As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, all of them megacities. The name America was first recorded in 1507 in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann and it first applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means land of Amerigo and derives from Amerigo and gen, America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa. When conceived as a continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America. In some countries of the world, America is considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents, the first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the glacial maximum

16.
Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories

17.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other

18.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations

19.
South America
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South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere. It may also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas, which is the used in nations that speak Romance languages. The reference to South America instead of other regions has increased in the last decades due to changing geopolitical dynamics. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, North America and it includes twelve sovereign states, a part of France, and a non-sovereign area. In addition to this, the ABC islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers. Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000, South America ranks fourth in area and fifth in population. Brazil is by far the most populous South American country, with more than half of the population, followed by Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela. In recent decades Brazil has also concentrated half of the regions GDP and has become a first regional power, most of the population lives near the continents western or eastern coasts while the interior and the far south are sparsely populated. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, the continents cultural and ethnic outlook has its origin with the interaction of indigenous peoples with European conquerors and immigrants and, more locally, with African slaves. Given a long history of colonialism, the majority of South Americans speak Portuguese or Spanish. South America occupies the portion of the Americas. The continent is delimited on the northwest by the Darién watershed along the Colombia–Panama border. Almost all of mainland South America sits on the South American Plate, South Americas major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin, and petroleum. These resources found in South America have brought high income to its countries especially in times of war or of rapid growth by industrialized countries elsewhere. However, the concentration in producing one major export commodity often has hindered the development of diversified economies and this is leading to efforts to diversify production to drive away from staying as economies dedicated to one major export. South America is one of the most biodiverse continents on earth, South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha, jaguar, vicuña, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a proportion of the Earths species. Brazil is the largest country in South America, encompassing around half of the land area

20.
Caribbean Sea
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The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the islands of the West Indies. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km2, the seas deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at 7,686 m below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays, the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, Gulf of Paria, the Caribbean Sea has the worlds second biggest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It runs 1,000 km along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, the name Caribbean derives from the Caribs, one of the regions dominant Native American groups at the time of European contact during the late 15th century. During the first century of development, Spanish dominance in the region remained undisputed, from the 16th century, Europeans visiting the Caribbean region identified the South Sea as opposed to the North Sea. The Caribbean Sea had been unknown to the populations of Eurasia until 1492, at that time the Western Hemisphere in general was unknown to Europeans. Following the discovery of the islands by Columbus, the area was colonised by several Western cultures. As of 2015 the area is home to 22 island territories, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Caribbean Sea as follows, On the North. In the Windward Channel – a line joining Caleta Point and Pearl Point in Haïti, in the Mona Passage – a line joining Cape Engano and the extreme of Agujereada in Puerto Rico. From Galera Point through Trinidad to Galeota Point and thence to Baja Point in Venezuela, note that, although Barbados is an island on the same continental shelf, it is considered to be in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean Sea is an oceanic sea largely situated on the Caribbean Plate, the Caribbean Sea is separated from the ocean by several island arcs of various ages. The youngest stretches from the Lesser Antilles to the Virgin Islands to the north east of Trinidad, the larger islands in the northern part of the sea Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico lie on an older island arc. The geological age of the Caribbean Sea is estimated to be between 160 and 180 million years and was formed by a fracture that split the supercontinent called Pangea in the Mesozoic Era. It is assumed the proto-caribbean basin existed in the Devonian period, in the early Carboniferous movement of Gondwana to the north and its convergence with the Euramerica basin decreased in size. The next stage of the Caribbean Seas formation began in the Triassic, powerful rifting led to the formation of narrow troughs, stretching from modern Newfoundland to the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico which formed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. In the early Jurassic due to powerful marine transgression, water broke into the present area of the Gulf of Mexico creating a vast shallow pool, the emergence of deep basins in the Caribbean occurred during the Middle Jurassic rifting. The emergence of these marked the beginning of the Atlantic Ocean

21.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun

22.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them

23.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace

24.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa

25.
Caribbean
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The Caribbean is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays. These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea, in a wider sense, the mainland countries of Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region. Geopolitically, the Caribbean islands are usually regarded as a subregion of North America and are organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15,1954, to October 10,2010, there was a known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations, the region takes its name from that of the Caribs, an ethnic group present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America at the time of the Spanish conquest. The two most prevalent pronunciations of Caribbean are KARR-ə-BEE-ən, with the accent on the third syllable. The former pronunciation is the older of the two, although the variant has been established for over 75 years. It has been suggested that speakers of British English prefer KARR-ə-BEE-ən while North American speakers more typically use kə-RIB-ee-ən, usage is split within Caribbean English itself. The word Caribbean has multiple uses and its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to slavery, European colonisation, the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas accords the Caribbean as a distinct region within the Americas. Physiographically, the Caribbean region is mainly a chain of islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea, to the north, the region is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east and northeast. To the south lies the coastline of the continent of South America, politically, the Caribbean may be centred on socio-economic groupings found in the region. For example, the known as the Caribbean Community contains the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the Atlantic Ocean, are members of the Caribbean Community. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is also in the Atlantic and is a member of the Caribbean Community. According to the ACS, the population of its member states is 227 million people. The geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies, Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin and these islands include Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Saint Croix, the Bahamas, and Antigua

26.
Last glacial period
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The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period, which occurred from c. 110,000 – c. 11,700 years ago. This most recent glacial period is part of a pattern of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation. From this point of view, scientists consider this ice age to be merely the latest glaciation event in a larger ice age. During this last glacial period, there were changes between glacier advance and retreat. The Last Glacial Maximum, the extent of glaciation within the last glacial period, was approximately 22,000 years ago. Approximately 13,000 years ago, the Late Glacial Maximum began, around 11,700 years ago marked the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch, which includes the Holocene glacial retreat. From the point of view of archaeology, it falls in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. When the glaciation event started, Homo sapiens were confined to Africa and used tools comparable to those used by Neanderthals in western and central Eurasia, near the end of the event, Homo sapiens spread into Eurasia and Australia. The retreat of the glaciers allowed groups of Asians to migrate to the Americas, glacials, on the other hand, refer to colder phases within an ice age that separate interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period is not the end of the last ice age, the end of the last glacial period was about 11,700 years ago, while the end of the last ice age has not yet come. Over the past few years the glacial-interglacial cycle has been paced by periodic variations in the Earths orbit via Milankovitch cycles which are thus the cause of ice ages. The glaciations that occurred during this period covered many areas, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. The geochronological Late Pleistocene comprises the late glacial and the immediately preceding penultimate interglacial preiond, the last glaciation centered on the huge ice sheets of North America and Eurasia. Considerable areas in the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes were ice-covered, Canada was nearly completely covered by ice, as well as the northern part of the United States, both blanketed by the huge Laurentide ice sheet. Alaska remained mostly ice free due to climate conditions. Local glaciations existed in the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleran ice sheet and as ice fields, the maximum extent of western Siberian glaciation was reached by approximately 16, 000–15,000 BCE and thus later than in Europe. Northeastern Siberia was not covered by an ice sheet. Instead, large, but restricted, icefield complexes covered mountain ranges within northeast Siberia, according to the sediment composition retrieved from deep-sea cores there must even have been times of seasonally open waters

27.
Beringia
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It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States. The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. Today, the land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, St. Lawrence Island. The term Beringia was coined by the Swedish botanist Eric Hultén in 1937, during the ice ages, Beringia, like most of Siberia and all of North and Northeast China, was not glaciated because snowfall was very light. It was a grassland steppe, including the bridge, that stretched for hundreds of kilometres into the continents on either side. Before European colonization, Beringia was inhabited by the Yupik peoples on both sides of the straits and this culture remains in the region today along with others. In 2012, the governments of Russia and the United States announced a plan to establish a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage. The underlying mechanism was first thought to be tectonics, but by 1930 changes in the icemass balance, the American arctic geologist David Hopkins redefined Beringia to include portions of Alaska and Northeast Asia. Beringia was later regarded as extending from the Verkhoyansk Mountains in the west to the Mackenzie River in the east. The distribution of plants in the genera Erythranthe and Pinus are good examples of this as genera members are found in Asia, during the Pleistocene epoch, global cooling led periodically to the expansion of glaciers and lowering of sea levels. This created land connections in various regions around the globe, today, the average water depth of the Bering Strait is 40–50 m, therefore the land bridge opened when the sea level dropped more than 50 m below the current level. Post-glacial rebound has continued to some sections of coast. During the last glacial period, enough of the water became frozen in the great ice sheets covering North America. For thousands of years the sea floors of many interglacial shallow seas were exposed, including those of the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea to the north, other land bridges around the world have emerged and disappeared in the same way. Beringias closeness to the sea created intermittent maritime cloud cover, which caused an interruption to the dry, in the Late Pleistocene, Beringia was a mosaic of biological communities. Commencing from c. 57,000 BP, steppe–tundra vegetation dominated large parts of Beringia with a diversity of grasses. There were patches of shrub tundra with isolated refugia of larch and spruce forests with birch and it has been proposed that the largest and most diverse megafaunal community residing in Beringia at this time could only have been sustained in a highly diverse and productive environment. These changes provided the most likely explanation for mammal migrations after c. 15,000 BP, as the warming provided increased forage for browsers, Beringia did not block the movement of most dry steppe-adapted large species such as saiga antelope, woolly mammoth, and caballid horses

28.
Paleo-Indians
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The prefix paleo- comes from the Greek adjective palaios, meaning old or ancient. The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic. Evidence suggests big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from Eurasia into North America over a land and ice bridge, small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. From c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE, ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and this allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior. The people went on foot or used primitive boats along the coastline, the precise dates and routes of the peopling of the New World are subject to ongoing debate. Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scrapers, are the evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Crafted lithic flaked tools are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to classify cultural periods, scientific evidence links Indigenous Americans to Asian peoples, specifically eastern Siberian populations. There is evidence for at least two separate migrations, between 8000–7000 BCE the climate stabilized, leading to a rise in population and lithic technology advances, resulting in more sedentary lifestyle. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age. Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia, ranges from c. 40,000 – c. 16,500 years ago and this time range is a source of debate and promises to continue as such for years to come. However, alternative theories about the origins of Paleoindians exist, including migration from Europe, the Paleo-Indian would eventually flourish all over the Americas. These peoples were spread over a geographical area, thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making knapping styles. Food would have been plentiful during the few months of the year. Lakes and rivers were teeming with many species of fish, birds, nuts, berries and edible roots could be found in the forests and marshes. The fall would have been a time because foodstuffs would have to be stored

29.
Archaic period (North America)
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The Archaic stage is characterized by subsistence economies supported through the exploitation of nuts, seeds, and shellfish. As its ending is defined by the adoption of sedentary farming and this classification system was first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in the widely accepted 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology. In the organization of the system, the Archaic period followed the Lithic stage and is superseded by the Formative stage, the Lithic stage The Archaic stage The Formative stage The Classic stage The Post-Classic stage Numerous local variations have been identified within the cultural rankings. The period has been subdivided by region and then time, for instance, the Archaic Southwest tradition is subdivided into the Dieguito-Pinto, Oshara, Cochise and Chihuahua cultures. Such early mound sites as Frenchmans Bend and Hedgepeth were of time period. Watson Brake is now considered the oldest mound complex in the Americas, more than 100 sites have been identified as associated with the regional Poverty Point culture of the Late Archaic period, and it was part of a regional trading network across the Southeast. Across what is now the Southeastern United States, starting around 4000 BCE, people exploited wetland resources, middens developed along rivers, but there is limited evidence of Archaic peoples along coastlines prior to 3000 BCE. Archaic sites on the coast may have been inundated by rising sea levels, starting around 3000 BCE evidence of large-scale exploitation of oysters appears. During the period 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE shell rings, large shell middens more or less surrounding open centers, developed along the coast of the Southeastern United States. These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia, but are found scattered around the Florida Peninsula. In some places, such as Horrs Island in Southwest Florida, four shell or sand mounds on Horrs Island have been dated to between 4,870 and 4,270 Before Present. The site which is considered to be one of the most significant centres of habitation and ceremonial burial in Canada, is located on the north side Rainy River in Northwestern Ontario. It became part of a trading network because of its strategic location at the centre of major North American waterways. In Glyn Edmund Daniel, Christopher Chippindale, feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley, Archaic Sacred Sites and Rituals. Knoxville, U of Tennessee P. ISBN 1-5723-3733-8, gainesville, Florida, The University Press of Florida

30.
Classic stage
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This stage is the fourth of five stages posited by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology. Cultures of the Classic Stage are supposed to possess craft specialization, social organization is supposed to involve the beginnings of urbanism and large ceremonial centers. Ideologically, Classic cultures should have a developed theocracy, the Classic Stage was initially defined as restricted to the complex societies of Mesoamerica and Peru. However, the period includes other advanced cultures, such as Hopewell, Teotihuacan. The Classic Stage followed the Formative stage and was superseded by the Post-Classic stage, there are alternative classification systems, and this ranking would overlap what others classify as the Woodland period and Mississippian cultures

31.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools

32.
Age of Discovery
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It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered during this period, from the perspective of many non-Europeans, the Age of Discovery marked the arrival of settlers and invaders from a previously unknown continent. This represented one of the most-significant global events concerning ecology, agriculture and it also allowed for the expansion of Christianity throughout the world with the spread of missionary activity, becoming the worlds largest religion. The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa from 1418, in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean by this route. In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon funded Christopher Columbuss plan to sail west to reach the Indies by crossing the Atlantic and he landed on a continent uncharted by Europeans and seen as a new world, the Americas. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, soon, the Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable Spice Islands in 1512, landing in China one year later. In 1513, Spanish Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, thus, Europe first received news of the eastern and western Pacific within a one-year span around 1512. Meanwhile, from the 1580s to the 1640s, Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia, another source was the Radhanite Jewish trade networks of merchants established as go-betweens between Europe and the Muslim world during the time of the Crusader states. Knowledge about the Atlantic African coast was fragmented and derived mainly from old Greek and Roman maps based on Carthaginian knowledge, the Red Sea was barely known and only trade links with the Maritime republics, the Republic of Venice especially, fostered collection of accurate maritime knowledge. Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab traders, between 1405 and 1421, the Yongle Emperor of Ming China sponsored a series of long range tributary missions under the command of Zheng He. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Maritime Southeast Asia, by 1400 a Latin translation of Ptolemys Geographia reached Italy coming from Constantinople. The rediscovery of Roman geographical knowledge was a revelation, both for mapmaking and worldview, although reinforcing the idea that the Indian Ocean was landlocked, a prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages. A series of Europeans took advantage of these to explore eastwards, most were Italians, as trade between Europe and the Middle East was controlled mainly by the Maritime republics. The close Italian links to the Levant raised great curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east, christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of the Levant, from which they gained a greater understanding of the world. The first of these travellers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, dispatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Great Khan, about the same time, Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and subsequently his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, travelled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts, other travellers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia. After returning, he dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar he met in Granada, the Rihla, between 1357 and 1371 a book of supposed travels compiled by John Mandeville acquired extraordinary popularity. These overland journeys had little immediate effect, the Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became more difficult and dangerous

33.
Early modern period
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The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Historians in recent decades have argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the period witnessed the exploration and colonization of the Americas and the rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe. The historical powers became involved in trade, as the exchange of goods, plants, animals, and food crops extended to the Old World. The Columbian Exchange greatly affected the human environment, New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the early modern period. This process began in the medieval North Italian city-states, particularly Genoa, Venice, the early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of the economic theory of mercantilism. The European colonization of the Americas, Asia, and Africa occurred during the 15th to 19th centuries, the early modern trends in various regions of the world represented a shift away from medieval modes of organization, politically and economically. Historians typically date the end of the modern period when the French Revolution of the 1790s began the modern period. Early modern themes Other In 16th century China, the Ming Dynastys economy was stimulated by trade with the Portuguese, Spanish. China became involved in a new trade of goods, plants, animals. Trade with Early Modern Europe and Japan brought in massive amounts of silver, during the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and the entire Chinese economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age, natural calamities, crop failure, the ensuing breakdown of authority and peoples livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority. The Ming Dynasty fell around 1644 to the Qing Dynasty, which was the last ruling dynasty of China, during its reign, the Qing Dynasty became highly integrated with Chinese culture. The Azuchi-Momoyama period saw the unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Edo period from 1600 to 1868 characterized early modern Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period gets its name from the city, Edo. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle from 1603 until 1868, in 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon Dynasty with a largely bloodless coup. Joseon experienced advances in science and culture, King Sejong the Great promulgated hangul, the Korean alphabet. The period saw various other cultural and technological advances as well as the dominance of neo-Confucianism over the entirety of Korea, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, invasions by the neighboring Japanese and Qing Chinese nearly overran the Korean peninsula

34.
European colonization of the Americas
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European colonization of the Americas began as early as the 10th–11th century, when West Norse sailors explored and briefly settled limited areas on the shores of present-day Canada. These Norsemen were Vikings who had discovered and settled Greenland, then sailed up the Arctic region of North America alongside Greenland, according to Icelandic Sagas, violent conflicts with the indigenous population ultimately made the Norse abandon those settlements. Running aground on the part of Hispaniola on December 5,1492, which the Taino people had inhabited since the 7th century. European conquest, large-scale exploration, colonization and industrial development soon followed, Columbus first two voyages reached the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands, including Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba. In 1497, sailing from Bristol on behalf of England, John Cabot landed on the North American coast, other powers such as France also founded colonies in the Americas, in eastern North America, a number of Caribbean islands, and small coastal parts of South America. Portugal colonized Brazil, tried colonizing the coasts of present-day Canada, the Age of Exploration was the beginning of territorial expansion for several European countries. Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere came under the control of European governments, leading to profound changes to its landscape, population. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas, Norse journeys to Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. It was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1978, Early explorations and conquests were made by the Spanish and the Portuguese immediately following their own final reconquest of Iberia in 1492. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés took over the Aztec Kingdom and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire, over this same timeframe, Portugal claimed lands in North America and colonized much of eastern South America, naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil. Other European nations soon disputed the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, England and France attempted to plant colonies in the Americas in the 16th century, but these failed. England and France succeeded in establishing permanent colonies in the following century, in the 18th century, Denmark–Norway revived its former colonies in Greenland, while the Russian Empire gained a foothold in Alaska. Denmark-Norway would later make claims in the Caribbean, starting in the 1600s. As more nations gained an interest in the colonization of the Americas, colonists often faced the threat of attacks from neighboring colonies, as well as from indigenous tribes and pirates. He was followed by other such as John Cabot, who was sponsored by England. Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil and claimed it for Portugal, amerigo Vespucci, working for Portugal in voyages from 1497 to 1513, established that Columbus had reached a new set of continents. Cartographers still use a Latinized version of his first name, America, in 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World. In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and it was 1517 before another expedition, from Cuba, visited Central America, landing on the coast of Yucatán in search of slaves

35.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age

36.
Atlantic slave trade
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The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th through the 19th centuries. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires, the Portuguese were the first to engage in the New World slave trade in the 16th century. In 1526, the Portuguese completed the first transatlantic voyage from Africa to the Americas. The first Africans imported to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, like coming from England. By the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a caste, they and their offspring were legally the property of their owners. As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, the major Atlantic slave trading nations, ordered by trade volume, were, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empire. Several had established outposts on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African leaders and these slaves were managed by a factor who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were kept in a factory while awaiting shipment, current estimates are that about 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, although the number purchased by the traders is considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate. Near the beginning of the century, various governments acted to ban the trade. In the early twenty-first century, several governments issued apologies for the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade arose after trade contacts were first made between the continents of the Old World and those of the New World, between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast, historian John Thornton noted, A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce. That leadership later gave rise to the myth that the Iberians were the leaders of the exploration. Slavery was practiced in parts of Africa, Europe, Asia. There is evidence that people from some African states were exported to other states in Africa, Europe. The African slave trade provided a number of slaves to Europeans. The Atlantic slave trade was not the slave trade from Africa, although it was the largest in volume. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique, The African continent was bled of its resources via all possible routes

37.
Western culture
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The term also applies beyond Europe, to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western Culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture, with the worlds first democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science, Greece was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. European culture developed with a range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and mysticism. Rational thinking developed through an age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment. More often an ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category, many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire are considered Western today but were Eastern in the past. Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the West is and it is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all cultures are, to some extent. Stereotyped views of the West have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of the East, as Europe discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly considered the Orient became the Near East, as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time. Thus, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East, the Greeks contrasted themselves to their Eastern neighbors, such as the Trojans in Iliad, setting an example for later contrasts between east and west. In the Middle Ages, the Near East provided a contrast to the West, concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Latin Christendom, Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all cultures, it has evolved and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity. Nevertheless, the Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves as something between the wild barbarians of most of Europe and the soft, slavish Middle-Easterners. In the meantime, however, Greece, under Alexander, had become a capital of the East, the Celts also created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity

38.
Amerigo Vespucci
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Colloquially referred to as the New World, this second super continent came to be termed Americas, deriving its name from Americus, the Latin version of Vespuccis first name. Amerigo Vespucci was born and raised in Florence on the Italian Peninsula and he was the third son of Ser Nastagio Vespucci, a Florentine notary, and Lisabetta Mini. The father of Ser Nastagio Vespucci had the name Amerigo Vespucci also, Amerigo Vespucci was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar of the monastery of San Marco in Florence. Vespucci acquired the favor and protection of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici who became the head of the business after the elder Lorenzos death in 1492, just around this time, Vespucci was engaged as the executor of Giannotto Berardi, an Italian merchant who had recently died in Seville. Vespucci organized the fulfillment of Berardis outstanding contract with the Castilian crown to provide twelve vessels for the Indies, after these were delivered, Vespucci continued as a provision contractor for Indies expeditions, and is known to have secured beef supplies for at least one of Columbus voyages. At the invitation of king Manuel I of Portugal, Vespucci participated as observer in several voyages that explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the first of these voyages he was aboard the ship that discovered that South America extended much further south than previously thought, the expeditions became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to Vespucci were published between 1502 and 1504. In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the new continent America after the feminine Latin version of Vespuccis first name. In an accompanying book, Waldseemüller published one of the Vespucci accounts, in 1508, the position of chief of navigation of Spain was created for Vespucci, with the responsibility of planning navigation for voyages to the Indies. Two letters attributed to Vespucci were published during his lifetime, mundus Novus was a Latin translation of a lost Italian letter sent from Lisbon to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici. It describes a voyage to South America in 1501–1502, mundus Novus was published in late 1502 or early 1503 and soon reprinted and distributed in numerous European countries. Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuovamente trovate in quattro suoi viaggi, printed in 1504 or 1505, it claimed to be an account of four voyages to the Americas made by Vespucci between 1497 and 1504. A Latin translation was published by the German Martin Waldseemüller in 1507 in Cosmographiae Introductio, Vespucci even developed a rudimentary, but fairly accurate method of determining longitude. In the 18th century, three unpublished familiar letters from Vespucci to Lorenzo de Medici were rediscovered, one describes a voyage made in 1499–1500 which corresponds with the second of the four voyages. Another was written from Cape Verde in 1501 in the part of the third of the four voyages. The third letter was sent from Lisbon after the completion of that voyage, some have suggested that Vespucci, in the two letters published in his lifetime, was exaggerating his role and constructed deliberate fabrications. However, many now believe that the two letters were not written by him but were fabrications by others based in part on genuine letters by Vespucci. It was the publication and widespread circulation of the letters that might have led Waldseemüller to name the new continent America on his map of 1507 in Lorraine

39.
Matthias Ringmann
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Matthias Ringmann was a German cartographer and humanist poet. Along with fellow cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, he is credited with drafting the first world map to name America as a land mass, Ringmann was born in Eichhoffen, Alsace around 1482, though the exact year is up for debate. He became a schoolmaster and is described as a poet. Sometime, around 1503, Ringmann visited Italy and this is where he first learned about the explorations of the recently discovered western lands. These were initially known as the New World, and were named the Americas. He also came to believe that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered South America, Waldseemüller drew the maps while Ringmann edited the translation and wrote a preface. Ringmann is also the best candidate for the author of the introduction to Waldseemüllers great map and it seems probable that Walter Ludd, the head of the Gymnasium Vosagense, paid Ringmann and Waldseemüller to do this work for publication at the Gymnasiums printing press at St. Dié. Ringmann also may have read the French edition of Vespuccis letters, since Vespuccis written accounts were in Italian, the translation to French could have been the source of Ringmanns misunderstanding of the accepted discoverer of the New World. He described this in his introduction, There is a quarter of the world which Amerigo Vespucci has discovered. We do not see why the name of the man of genius, Amerigo, when the book was published by the name Cosmographiae Introductio on April 25,1507, it was the first time that the word AMERICA appeared in print. Waldseemüller corrected the error in an edition and named South America Terra Nova. The was what is known as the first modern atlas of the world, in 1508 Ringmann made the first translation of Julius Caesars Commentaries into German with supplemental lives by Suetonius, Plutarch, and others. One year later, he published a game, Grammatica Figurata, to make the grammatical rules of Donatus, Ars Minor. He died in 1511 in Sélestat, the Grammatica Figurata was first published by Mathias Ringmann in 1509. This work was an attempt to enliven Donatus Ars Minor by printing up illustrated card sets for each grammatical rule, apparently the children would have a card set. The rules are not explained at length, but a few hints are scattered here and there in the work, the final section on Exclamations has a sentence on how to figure out which student has won. Each card represented a part of speech, a gender, a case, or a tense, depending upon the teachers questions a student would play the appropriate card or cards. Long believed to be lost, one copy of Grammatica figurata was found, of particular interest are Ringmanns digressions on assorted subjects, from the prevalence of gambling among the German priesthood to the reasons behind his refusal to illustrate full-frontal nudity

40.
East Indies
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The East Indies or Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, the name Indies is derived from the river Indus and is used to connote parts of Asia that came under Indian cultural influence. The East Indies may also include the former French-held Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and it does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. In colonial times they were just natives, however, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The major languages in this area draw from a variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections, archaically called Hither India and Further India, the first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia. Historically, the king of Abyssinia was identified with Prester John of the Indies, exploration of these regions by European powers first began in the late 15th century and early 16th century led by the Portuguese explorers. The Portuguese described the region they discovered as the Indies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies, the East Indies, which was also called Old Indies or Great Indies, consisting of India, and the West Indies, also called New Indies or Little Indies, consisting of the Americas. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus, later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the West Indies, while the original Indies came to be called the East Indies. Greater India History of the Americas Indian Spanish West Indies

41.
Gerardus Mercator
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Gerardus Mercator was a 16th-century German-Netherlandish cartographer, geographer and cosmographer. Mercator was one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and is considered as the most notable representative of the school in its golden age. He chose the word as a commemoration of a King Atlas of Mauretania whom he considered to be the first great geographer and this King Atlas was a son of the Titan Atlas but the two myths very quickly coalesced. A large part of Mercators income came from the sales of his terrestrial and celestial globes, for sixty years they were considered to be the finest in the world, and they were sold in such great numbers that there are many surviving examples. This was a substantial enterprise involving making the spheres, printing the gores, building substantial stands and he was also renowned for his scientific instruments, particularly his astrolabes and astronomical rings used to study the geometry of astronomy and astrology. Mercator wrote on geography, philosophy, chronology and theology, all of the wall maps were engraved with copious text on the region concerned. As an example the famous map of 1569 is inscribed with over 5000 words in fifteen legends. His table of chronology ran to some 400 pages fixing the dates of earthly dynasties, major political and military events, volcanic eruptions and he also wrote on the gospels and the old testament. Mercator was a devout Christian born into a Catholic family at a time when Martin Luthers Protestantism was gaining ground and he never declared himself as a Lutheran but he was clearly sympathetic and he was accused of heresy. He spent six months in prison but he emerged unscathed and this period of persecution is probably the major factor in his move from Catholic Leuven to a more tolerant Duisburg where he lived for the last thirty years of his life. Gerardus Mercator was born Geert De Kremer, the child of Hubert De Kremer. Their home town was Gangelt in the Duchy of Jülich but, at the time of the birth, Hubert was a poor artisan, a shoemaker by trade, but Gisbert, a priest, was a man of some importance in the community. Their stay in Rupelmonde was brief and within six months returned to Gangelt. Six years later, in 1518, the Kremers moved back to Rupelmonde, possibly motivated by the conditions in Gangelt—famine, plague. Today, many Belgians and Germans still claim Mercator as their own, despite the lack of any evidence pertaining to the birthplace and background of his father, Hubert. Most modern scholars adopt a position, hesitating to assign a nationality to Mercator. After Huberts death in 1526, Gisbert became Mercators guardian, hoping that Mercator might follow him into the priesthood, he sent the 15 year old Geert to the famous school of the Brethren of the Common Life at s-Hertogenbosch in the Duchy of Brabant. Mercator would follow similar precepts later in life—with problematic outcomes, the Brethren were renowned for their scriptorum and here Mercator may have encountered the italic script which he employed in his later work

42.
Central America
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Central America is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Central America consists of seven countries, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The combined population of Central America is between 41,739,000 and 42,688,190, Central America is a part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur frequently, these disasters have resulted in the loss of many lives. In the Pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west. Soon after Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish began to colonize the Americas, the seven states finally became independent autonomous states, beginning with Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, followed by El Salvador, then Panama, and finally Belize. Middle America is usually thought to comprise Mexico to the north of the 7 states of Central America as well as Colombia, usually the whole of the Caribbean to the north-east and sometimes the Guyanas are also included. According to one source, the term Central America was used as a synonym for Middle America as recently as 1962, in Brazil, Central America comprises all countries between Mexico and Colombia, including those in the Caribbean. Mexico, in whole or in part, is included by British people. For the people living in the 5 countries formerly part of the Federal Republic of Central America there is a distinction between the Spanish language terms América Central and Centroamérica, in the Pre-Columbian era, the northern areas of Central America were inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Most notable among these were the Mayans, who had built numerous cities throughout the region, and the Aztecs, following Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish sent many expeditions to the region, and they began their conquest of Maya territory in 1523. Soon after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado commenced the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. Beginning with his arrival in Soconusco in 1523, Alvarados forces systematically conquered and subjugated most of the major Maya kingdoms, including the Kiche, Tzutujil, Pipil, and the Kaqchikel. By 1528, the conquest of Guatemala was nearly complete, with only the Petén Basin remaining outside the Spanish sphere of influence, the last independent Maya kingdoms – the Kowoj and the Itza people – were finally defeated in 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. In 1538, Spain established the Real Audiencia of Panama, which had jurisdiction over all land from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. This entity was dissolved in 1543, and most of the territory within Central America then fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. This area included the current territories of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, the president of the Audiencia, which had its seat in Antigua Guatemala, was the governor of the entire area

43.
Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe

44.
Alfred Hudd
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Alfred Edmund Hudd was a native of Clifton, Bristol, England. An accountant as a man, his means were such that he was able to pursue his interests as a naturalist. He was a member of a number of societies, often assuming leadership positions, Alfred Edmund Hudd, son of leather merchant Samuel Hudd and his wife Mary Ann, was born in the second quarter of 1846 in Clifton. An accountant, he married Catharine Bowles Edmonds in the first quarter of 1872, their marriage recorded in the district of Faringdon. In 1881, Alfred and his wife resided at Clinton House on Pembroke Road in Clifton, by 1870, Hudd was a member of the Bristol Naturalists Society, which had been founded in 1862. He was first appointed to the Council of the society on 6 May 1875, after a hiatus as a Council member for several years, Hudd was reappointed to the Council in 1899, where he remained until at least 1901. Parts 3,4, and 5 appeared in Volume 3 of the Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists Society, part 6 appeared in Volume 4 of the Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists Society, published in 1885. Hudd was also a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London, founded in 1833, in 1912, he presented his collection of 1300 coleoptera specimens to the Bristol Museum and Library, now the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, to supplement the Stephen Barton collection. His collection of specimens was added to the George C. Griffiths collection at the Bristol Museum, Hudd also contributed a short chapter on The Insects of the Bristol District to the Handbook to Bristol and the neighbourhood. Hudd was elected secretary of the Clifton Antiquarian Club at its first meeting on 23 January 1884 at the Bristol Museum and he retained that position during all twenty-eight years of the original society. He served as editor of the seven volumes of Proceedings. His service to the organisation was acknowledged on 5 January 1898 when the club presented him with a silver bowl, in 1911, the membership of the club again paid tribute to his efforts, with an inscribed, inlaid grandfather clock. Alfred Hudd was a member of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, on 9 August 1904, he was elected to membership of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland at a meeting of that organisation held at Tuam, County Galway. In addition, he was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Alfred Hudd was closely involved with the Caerwent Exploration Fund. The Caerwent Exploration Fund was established by the Clifton Antiquarian Club soon thereafter, in September 1899, at Caerwent, Godfrey Morgan, Lord Tredegar, was elected President of the Caerwent Exploration Fund and Alfred Hudd was elected Treasurer. Hudd and Thomas Ashby, Junior, both members of the Executive Committee of the Fund, supervised the excavations at Caerwent, during the period between 1899 and 1913, two-thirds of the Roman town in south Wales was revealed. The archive of Caerwent, which was discovered during the excavations by the Fund, is in the collection of Newport Museum

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the …

Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller map dated 1507, from a time when the nature of the Americas was ambiguous, particularly North America, as a possible part of Asia, was the first map to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans. South America was generally considered a "new world" and shows the name "America" for the first time, after Amerigo Vespucci

Made in 1529, the Diogo Ribeiro map was the first to show the Pacific at about its proper size

The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the …

Cishou Temple Pagoda, built in 1576: the Chinese believed that building pagodas on certain sites according to geomantic principles brought about auspicious events; merchant-funding for such projects was needed by the late Ming period.

The Portuguese presenting themselves before the Manikongo. The Portuguese initially fostered a good relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo. Civil War within Kongo would lead to many of its subjects ending up as enslaved people in Portuguese and other European vessels.